Unstoppable
I love Tony Scott movies. They may not be masterpieces of art, but they're always very competent action thrillers, well-shot and excellently paced. Not rich on story, but there's always just enough. I like how lean his movies are. It's like... shit gets done. The end. I love pretentious and ambitious, but sometimes I just want something that accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do, nothing more, nothing less.
Unstoppable is very well-made. It's very competent. Is it zomg amazing, no, but it sure is more exciting than I thought a movie about a runaway train could be. I was like !!! and :O and they're not cheap thrills, not manufactured tension, in a sense of being contrived or overwrought. Yes, Tony Scott is a very flashy director, busy and slick, but I never feel like that is done in place of substance, even if his movies are admittedly light on substance. Helps that Tony Scott loves to cast Denzel Washington, and I've said before that Denzel can sell me anything.
Chris Pine was competent. It's not a role that required a lot from him, so it's not like this is a showcase of his skillz. His character is kind of... well, his character is kind of a prick, let's be honest. And while Kirk was a prick, too, Kirk was charming, and Pine's character in this wasn't. I'm left kind of neutral, which is perhaps the only flaw. I didn't sympathize with him much. I didn't dislike him, but I didn't like him either. But at the same time, the point is that these are normal guys put into a crazy situation, so I wouldn't have liked an overly heroic treatment either, and I wouldn't have found it appropriate. So ultimately, I think it's the right choice.
With that said, I'd like to see the next Tony Scott and Denzel movie to be one more like Man on Fire, which remains my favorite of their collaboration. More and more, I feel like Denzel is kinda just coasting. He expressed something very raw in Man on Fire, and I haven't really seen that from him since, which disappoints me, because there's an excellent actor in there, but he seems to be coasting on his screen presence, which, while admittedly is still great, is becoming less and less satisfying.
Oh, back on the movie though, there IS one major major thing that annoyed the FUCK out of me. Rosario Dawson. I don't know if it's her, or Tony Scott's one shitty piece of directing, but she was constantly putting her hair up and then letting it down again. Like, repeatedly. It was really really really annoying.
Unstoppable is very well-made. It's very competent. Is it zomg amazing, no, but it sure is more exciting than I thought a movie about a runaway train could be. I was like !!! and :O and they're not cheap thrills, not manufactured tension, in a sense of being contrived or overwrought. Yes, Tony Scott is a very flashy director, busy and slick, but I never feel like that is done in place of substance, even if his movies are admittedly light on substance. Helps that Tony Scott loves to cast Denzel Washington, and I've said before that Denzel can sell me anything.
Chris Pine was competent. It's not a role that required a lot from him, so it's not like this is a showcase of his skillz. His character is kind of... well, his character is kind of a prick, let's be honest. And while Kirk was a prick, too, Kirk was charming, and Pine's character in this wasn't. I'm left kind of neutral, which is perhaps the only flaw. I didn't sympathize with him much. I didn't dislike him, but I didn't like him either. But at the same time, the point is that these are normal guys put into a crazy situation, so I wouldn't have liked an overly heroic treatment either, and I wouldn't have found it appropriate. So ultimately, I think it's the right choice.
With that said, I'd like to see the next Tony Scott and Denzel movie to be one more like Man on Fire, which remains my favorite of their collaboration. More and more, I feel like Denzel is kinda just coasting. He expressed something very raw in Man on Fire, and I haven't really seen that from him since, which disappoints me, because there's an excellent actor in there, but he seems to be coasting on his screen presence, which, while admittedly is still great, is becoming less and less satisfying.
Oh, back on the movie though, there IS one major major thing that annoyed the FUCK out of me. Rosario Dawson. I don't know if it's her, or Tony Scott's one shitty piece of directing, but she was constantly putting her hair up and then letting it down again. Like, repeatedly. It was really really really annoying.